Averting a Government Shutdown?

 Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript:  Print  |  Email Go  Click text to jump within videoWed 06 Mar 13 | 07:33 PM ET CNBC's Larry Kudlow speaks with Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner (R) about the sequester, health care and tax hikes. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), discuss.

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Largest U.S. Medical Marijuana Dispensary Beats Back Another Shutdown Attempt

Harborside Health Center founder Steve DeAngelo

Last month, a California judge rejected a landlord’s move to evict the nation’s largest medical marijuana dispensary for engaging in a business that is legal under state law. Now, a federal judge has also barred the landlord’s attempt to halt the dispensary’s operations.

In the ongoing federal-local battle over state laws that legalize medical marijuana, the court ruling is the latest victory for Harborside Health Center, a 100-plus-employee operation that Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker has praised for providing “access to safe, affordable and effective medicine.” While the Obama administration initially said it would not target medical marijuana dispensaries in compliance with state law, it has since fluctuated on this position, and pursued increasingly vigorous crackdowns. To shut down Harborside, the federal government filed a civil action to seize the Oakland and San Jose, Calif. properties Harborside leases for its dispensaries. The owners of the two properties attempted to skirt the federal case by moving to evict Harborside or cease its marijuana distribution. One county judge rejected the move, while another has allowed eviction proceedings to move forward. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James held Monday that the federal Controlled Substances act cannot be enforced by private parties like these landlords:

As Harborside points out, courts have consistently held that there is no private right of action under the CSA to force compliance. […]

Moreover, while the Court understands Claimants’ concern over the potential forfeiture of their properties, Rule G(7)(a) is not a means to sever business relationships when they suddenly prove risky or to demonstrate cooperation with the Government.

The landlords and the Department of Justice will now litigate between themselves over the move to seize the properties where Harborside is housed. The city of Oakland also filed an unprecedented, affirmative lawsuit to halt federal government crackdowns of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. The city alleges that the federal government exceeded its authority with its civil forfeiture action by acting contrary to earlier statements and actions that indicated it would not crack down on those dispensaries in compliance with state medical marijuana laws, now in 18 states.

The litigation raises the question of how the federal government will handle Washington and Colorado’s new laws to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana. In the first comment on the measures, President Obama said recreational users are not a “high priority.” He did not, however, refer to marijuana sellers and suppliers, which would be the likely subjects of any federal crackdown.

In the wake of the crackdown, landlords have been unwilling to rent to several other dispensaries that were approved for operation in Oakland.

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Sen. Toomey: GOP should risk shutdown to force spending cuts in debt-limit fight

By Alicia M. Cohn - 01/02/13 09:20 AM ET

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Wednesday called for Republicans to be ready to shut down the government to gain spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt-limit.

"We Republicans need to be willing to tolerate a temporary, partial government shutdown," he said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Toomey’s comments come after the House and Senate passed a bill extending middle-class tax rates and avoiding January’s rate increases for most taxpayers.

But the measure which also delays the sequestration cuts until March faced strong opposition from House Republicans who said it failed to address spending cuts. Both sides are now gearing up for battles over the debt-limit, which Toomey said would provide the GOP the leverage needed to force significant deficit reduction.

The Treasury said Monday that the U.S. had reached its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit. Secretary Geithner said the department had begun instituting “extraordinary measures” to avoid default. 

Toomey said that markets would suffer less from the "temporary disruption" of a government shutdown than from Washington showing an unwillingness to tackle its deficit woes.

President Obama has already warned Republicans, though, that he will not tolerate another extended debate over the debt ceiling. The negotiations over increasing the debt ceiling in summer 2011 resulted in an extended standoff between Obama and Republicans, a threat of a government shutdown, and a credit downgrade for the country. Obama said he would not allow that to happen again.

“While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed,” he said on Tuesday night. 

“If Congress refuses to give the United States government the ability to pay these bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic — far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff,” Obama added.

Toomey disagreed with Obama's argument that the debt ceiling is about paying past debts.

"It's to enable him to engage in the future spending that he wants," he said.

Toomey, who voted for the tax legislation passed New Year’s Day by the House and Senate, also responded to criticism from those on the right who saw the vote as a capitulation by GOP lawmakers to the president. 

The measure indefinitely extends the expiring Bush-era tax rates on annual family income up to $450,000, and for individuals up to a $400,000 cut off. It also lifts the top capital gains and dividends rates to 20 percent, extends unemployment benefits for a year, and delays for two months the automatic spending cuts triggered by the sequestering process. 

Democrats widely supported the legislation after a personal appeal by Biden but many Republicans continued to resist raising tax rates on any Americans, and also expressed dismay that the deal does not contain spending cuts.

It passed with only 85 Republican votes in the House, but all except five Republican Senators voted for it.

Conservative RedState blogger Erick Erickson on Tuesday called out Toomey by name, along with his GOP colleagues Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.), writing they should be "ashamed" of their votes for the bill, which was negotiated by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Erickson added that any member of Congress who believes they have better leverage over Obama in the upcoming debt-ceiling debate "is fooling themselves to avoid having to realize what a fool they are."

Toomey said Republicans' backs were "up again the wall" on the bill, which sought to undo the tax rate hikes which went into effect on Jan. 1. 

"We spared as many Americans as we possibly could from a tax increase," he argued on MSNBC, calling it a "very unusual situation" where Congress was scrambling to halt laws already on the books.

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